


Bite the Bullet

by cloverfield



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Brief Instances of OCs, Brief Instances of Violence, Competency Kink, Complete Disregard For How The Legal System Actually Works, Established Relationship, Fai Has No Respect For The Law, Family Feels, Guns, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, NSFW, Post-Series, Totally Incorrect Police Procedures, Tsubasa family is best family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 01:26:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3099875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloverfield/pseuds/cloverfield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Kuro-Daddy got hurt! And if there’s one thing Mokona knows --though Mokona knows <i>many</i> things, Mokona is so clever and wonderful-- it’s that when Daddy gets hurt, <i>Mummy gets even.</i>”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bite the Bullet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PokeChan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PokeChan/gifts).



> This fic was written for the lovely PokeChan, and while it was originally supposed to be for a CLAMPkink prompt, I feel like what I ended up with was so different than what I started with, that the prompt really doesn't work for it anymore. ^^;;

“You’re...  not going to,  _uh_ , help?” asks Syaoran anxiously. Even in the flickering light from the broken streetlamp, Kurogane can see his eyebrows draw together and his forehead furrow, worry riding the kid’s face much like Mokona is riding the back of his head: gripping on tight with very little intention of letting go.

Kurogane, leaning against the grimy wall of the warehouse, thinks for a bit; lets his gaze trail long and slow and thoughtful over the spectacle before them. “Nah,” he says, after a moment. He lifts his fingers to his temple; touches gingerly the blood that cools there, his fingertips coming away dark and wet. There’s a scream, thin and high and panicked, that cuts off in a pained gurgle. “He’s fine.”

Another shriek, this one followed by a wetly shattering kind of sound that suggests someone has either had their face shoved into a bowl of lemon juice and broken glass, or been thrown forcibly through the filthy glass roof of the noxious waste pool nearby. Syaoran winces, cringing away from the sight, the manjuu rearing up in fascination and tugging tiny paws in the snarls of his messy hair. “Wow! Look at Fai go! Mokona’s never seen Fai-Mummy get so enthusiastic about beating up the bad guys before!”

“Be fair,” says Kurogane, amused. The smirk that curls his lip is possessive and thrilled and several shades of aroused, all at once. “They started it.”

* * *

It’s only when the sirens come, washing red and blue in flares of broken light, that Fai finally thinks to stop. “Oh,” he says softly, watching the young men and women in their dark uniforms, clambering out of white cars and training muzzles of gun after gun on him; some instinct not his own prompts him to drop the groaning thug whose ragged clothes he holds in his fist, raising both hands slowly to the smog-choked sky as he blinks in startlement at the sudden array of armed people before him. “Um. Hello?” he chances, and the amused snort of someone he knows far too well comes from the shadows to his left, Kurogane flowing out from the darkness in a movement so smooth the nearest --what’s the word? Policker? Patroller?  _Policeman_ , yes, _that’s_  the one-- starts and nearly drops his weapon.

Syaoran isn’t long behind him, his young face caught so fiercely between anxious and alarmed that Fai honestly worries for the state of his twitching eyebrows, and Mokona riding him like a queen a palanquin. “Ooh,” she says, a stage whisper that carries quite easily across the grit and gravel between their small group and the ring of police surrounding them. “Look! Someone called the cops- does this mean Mokona can ride in a police car now?”

“Right,” says a woman, raising a hand; she steps forward with gun still holstered, ignoring the startled noises her companions make. Her face is dark and her hair drawn tight under her brimmed cap- but her eyes are sparkling with a humour her dour expression hides, and the insignia on her breast blazes with importance in reflected streaks of flashing red and blue. She points her finger, lining Fai up squarely. “I take it  _you’re_  the one responsible for the panicked calls from the Bloodhound Boys? It’s a strange thing indeed to have  _them_  calling  _us_  for help!”

Fai looks around; sees the groaning heaps of broken bones and bruised egos he laid out (and really, if they hadn’t  _wanted_  trouble, they should  _not_  have attacked his small family the moment they dropped out of the sky and into their dealings by accident; he is not responsible for his own actions, not after the first and most foolish of their new enemies got off a lucky shot from shaking hands that grazed his Kuro-sama’s temple and brought up blood from dark skin that is, in his eyes, inviolate), looks back at the woman --the sergeant, most likely, or commander; someone of rank in any case-- watching him and shrugs helplessly. “Yes?”

She laughs once, a bark of sound that ripples out, and the grin that flashes across her face is almost a relief- almost, but for the shrewd gleam in sharp eyes. “Figures. What’d you do, drop in unannounced on a trade deal gone wrong?”

“Something like that,” rumbles Kurogane, drawing near, and if Fai shivers a little at the sound of that voice so close to his ear --deep and quiet and full of understated menace-- it’s in no way a bad thing. There is still blood on his lover’s face, painted dark and red down the side of his cheek. “They shot first.”

“Kuro-Daddy got hurt!” pipes up Mokona, making Syaoran sigh and rub at his temples as she pulls at his hair once more. “And if there’s one thing Mokona knows --though Mokona knows  _many_  things, Mokona is so clever and wonderful-- it’s that when Daddy gets hurt,  _Mummy gets even_.” She says the last in an impassioned growl-- or as much of a growl as she can manage, at least, considering Fai is sure that one of the many magical ingredients used to give her life was probably the cotton-candy they ran into, several worlds back, fluffy and sweet and entirely non-threatening as it is.

(She’s not wrong, not even a little bit; there are many things Fai has suffered --will suffer, for the sake of those he loves, his needs and wants laid bare on the altar as a sacrifice so easily-- and many things he will allow, but hurt to those few he calls his own is not one. Not now, not ever, not this man, who has paid in blood and flesh and pain to keep him close even and especially in the worst of times, and the moment he turned at that sharp shock of sound to see those eyes wide and blood dripping wet --the  _smell of it_ , blooming hot and red on his tongue, painting his breath with the most possessive hunger-- had been more than enough to demand vengeance. His own blood is cheaply spilt, barely worth anything at all; the blood of those he holds dear commands price beyond measure, and he is not above extracting payment in the broken bones of those who made it fall.)

Still, the shock of being so passionately talked at by what is apparently a magical ball of fluff with floppy ears is enough to give their audience pause, a wave of released tension rolling through the crowd as guns are holstered and wary expressions are tempered with bemused disbelief.

“I see,” says the sergeant. Her eyes are laughing now, even if her voice is stern, and her gaze flicks one by one across them all, stopping assessingly on Fai’s face at the very last. “Well, I suppose I must ask you to come down to the station, to give your statement; justified or not, you could still be up for charges of assault if any one of these fine gentleman decides to press them.” There’s a moment of silence, punctuated by a broken sob and a groan that sounds like  _oh god please no_  from the man crumpled at Fai’s feet. Kurogane makes a  _heh_  noise, one that Fai knows well, and even Syaoran looks a tad amused. “I didn’t say it was likely, only if,” continues the sergeant. “Alright, boys and girls,” she adds, turning to the ranks behind her. “Start the clean-up; I’ll be taking our new friends down to the station.”

_“Yes m’am!”_

_“Yay! Mokona wants to ride in the front with the lady sergeant!”_

More laughter, and a startled smile, even as the ‘boys and girls’ in uniform behind her move out to corral Fai’s unfortunate victims. “How can I say no to that?” she murmurs. “All right, if you must-- I’m sure I’ll be able to look aside just this once on the seatbelt laws.”

* * *

It’s only once they get down to the station proper things start going wrong.

The manjuu gets to ride in the front seat, as requested, bouncing in Syaoran’s lap as he stares wide-eyed at the city lights through the windscreen and making affirmative noises at the gentle conversation the sergeant had started up with the engine. Kurogane was left to squeeze into the back of her car with the mage --and it was a squeeze, these seats not built for someone his size or even of the mage’s slightly leaner dimensions; Fai was a skinny bastard but he wasn’t  _small_  by any means, and they’d both had to fold their knees up uncomfortably far even with Syaoran scooting his seat as far forward as he was able-- and while the fit was tight at best the warmth of his hand on Fai’s thigh had been met with the softest smile, a brief flash of gratitude in blue eyes when he curled his fingers just enough to make the pressure felt.

 _You know I’m fine,_  he says, quiet, and watches the tight pinch of worry at the corner of those eyes ease up just slightly.

 _I know_ , comes the whisper,  _I know. And I am so glad_ , and that was that. Oh, there is still tension, in those shoulders; still the simmering remains of anger born of fear in the curl of Fai’s smile --fear  _for_  him, not of him;  _for him_ , and that was enough to make it strange and precious-- that he will have to spend some time smoothing out. But that can come later. For now, this closeness is enough, and the hesitant fall of Fai’s hand atop his own something welcome.

But the ride is short and while they are only “assisting with enquiries”, whatever that means, the moment they step in through the doors of the station the smile of the woman beside them drops away completely. “Detective Jacobs,” she mutters as though in warning, voice low, and Kurogane stiffens just a little at the audible distaste he can hear, as though the man walking towards them is a large and particularly slimy slug. Syaoran stiffens also, taking his cue from Kurogane’s slow and purposeful step in front of Fai at the base of the hallway, and one of the boy’s hands rises to rest gently on the manjuu, keeping her still and quiet.

“Ah, Danielle. It is good to see you’ve returned-- and with our suspects in tow, no less.”

“That’s Sergeant Reynard, please,” she says firmly. “And these young men are not my suspects; they’re assisting with enquiries, not under charges.” Unsurprisingly, none of the petty thugs Fai had bloodied up had been interested in pressing charges; they’d accepted medical help in response for surrendering the goods from an arms deal gone wrong, as far as Kurogane could understand, and put up not a thread of protest at being arrested either. The mage has done this world’s security forces a favour, in taking out his --impressive, breathtaking, improbably captivating-- temper on the poor bastards who’d shot at them the minute Mokona had dropped them from the sky and into their laps, and this woman knew it. But there is paperwork to complete, so if they have to come down to her headquarters to fill it in it at least means they’ll get away with something that could have gotten them into a lot of trouble besides.

(Not that they are strangers to trouble. He’s smashed open his fair share of prison cells and dungeon walls, in quite a few worlds before this one, and probably will again in the worlds thereafter. But it would be nice to not have to worry about dragging the mage and the kid and the manjuu on the run again, not when they have a chance at a world with proper beds and hot water. It has been a while since Kurogane has had anything but the hard ground beneath his back at night, and if he doesn’t need it --he isn’t that soft-- it doesn’t mean he doesn’t appreciate it when he’s got it. Not to mention that the worlds where they have rooms to themselves and something comfortable to sleep on mean he has a better chance at getting Fai on  _his_  back --or above him or beside him or in his lap or on his knees or up against the wall or in the shower with steam and heat or anywhere at all as long as there’s the smouldering blue shine of those wicked eyes glowing heat right down to his bones and that hot wet mouth _smiling_ \-- besides, and  _that_  is something to look forward to.)

The detective --Jacobs, apparently, though the sneer in his eyes makes Kurogane think of Rondart just a little, his fingers itching to curl into a fist-- looks her over, and there’s something in it that makes Kurogane think of the lordly new recruits at Shirasagi, the ones who had not yet understood that it’s not what’s between your legs that makes you but what’s between your ears; the ones that Souma had taken great and vindictive pleasure in breaking down before her and then building them up into something better. “Sergeant,” he says, with a purposeful drawl that drags the title out into something dismissive, “I believe that’s my decision to make and not yours. I’ll have them in the interviewing rooms for questioning, if you’d be so kind.”

Jacobs steps closer, close enough to be in arms reach, and his tan coat flares a little as his shiny shoes  _tock-tock-tock_  over the tiled hallway. One hand reaches out, as though to take Kurogane’s wrist; he stares blankly at the jingle of handcuffs in the detective’s other hand as they snap open with a twist of thick fingers, their wide circle of metal dull and somehow threatening, and there is a long moment where time seems to hang suspended but for the slow approach of those cuffs to Kurogane’s right arm.

“Ah, excuse me, sir,” starts Fai, peering suddenly past Kurogane’s shoulder and immediately his gut clenches, because he  _knows_  that tone of voice. “My companions weren’t involved, you see-- everything that happened down at the warehouse was my fault and mine alone.” The smile he gives this Jacobs --the one that Kurogane can just barely see from the corner of his eye-- is wide and winsome and so disarmingly helpless that Kurogane knows, right down to his soul, that Fai is  _furious_. “If you are going to interrogate us, then perhaps start with me? I’ll tell you what you wish to know, sir.” And he can’t think why, except for the handcuffs, and that’s just stupid; thin shitty steel cuffs like that couldn’t hold Syaoran let alone  _Kurogane_  if he were in a mood to break free--

\--but the detective pauses, dark eyes curious, and Fai offers both hands up --fine-boned and pale and deceptively thin, because they are so, so strong; he has felt those clever fingers tease through his hair and stroke soft on his face, pressed them to his lips and kissed the scars at their fingertips, and he holds dear everything they have ever given him, no matter how small-- with wrists turned out for the metals cuffs to clatter home.

“Alright then,” says Jacobs, and he sounds so pleased with himself that Kurogane would dearly like to punch him in his sneering face, feel his teeth splinter and break beneath his knuckles. “I’ll start with you. Don’t think you’re getting away either,” he sneers, turning at last to Kurogane and Syaoran and eventually Mokona (and if Kurogane is a little gratified to see him start at the manjuu, he’s even more so to hear Mokona huff disapprovingly and blow a cheeky raspberry at his face as he stares at her) with a smug expression. But Kurogane does not miss the way the sergeant’s eyes narrow, or how bright and wide and shiningly false Fai’s smile is, and when blue eyes glide gently across his face, the light that burns in them is no match at all for the mask the mage wears.

 _Fuck_ , Kurogane thinks, and wonders what the hell they’re going to do now.

* * *

It’s a curious place Fai finds himself in, and while this isn’t the first time they’ve been on the wrong side of the law of a new world --and it probably won’t be the last, if he’s honest; his companions are many things, moral and upright and good-hearted not the least, but naturally law-abiding is definitely not one of them-- it’s certainly the first time he’s found himself alone in such a room as this. Blank walls, plain furnishings, the cuffs around his wrists rattling where they are chained to the bare metal table he sits before... and a large and extremely conspicuous window with mirrored glass behind him.

It’s obvious it’s a window, and even more obvious the man Jacobs is watching him behind it; Fai doesn’t even need the vampire sleeping beneath his skin to sense him, not when the scent of some cloying aftershave carries clearly from his hair and clothes and across the tiny ventilating gaps between glass and brick-work. But when Fai reaches  _in_ , just enough to wake his senses to greater sharpness if not bring the gold gleam to life in his eyes, he can taste sweat and stale alcohol and some strange chemical tang; all of it the persistent odour of a stranger encroaching on his territory, and it’s this that stirs the beast in his belly.

He is tired and he is worried and above all else he is  _angry,_  and it is the lingering scent of Kurogane’s blood that has brought him to this state: raw-edged and fragile, each nerve tight and sparking and his magic coiling in furious spirals that chase glittering heat through his veins. (Because it was _misfortune_ that saw him hurt, a stupid coincidence that he was there in the wrong place at the wrong time to be shot at, and it was that alone --and nothing Fai could control or change or prevent through magic or skill or sacrifice-- that kept him from being killed through _blind fucking chance_.) It would be so  _easy_ to lash out, to break this world into tiny fragments and keep his small family safely by his side by sheer force, but he can’t and he won’t, and if it takes him longer than he hoped to claw back his control --to force an ill-fitting mask across his rage-- his smile is still pleasant when the detective finally breaks the uniform blankness of the room by opening the door.

“You’re very calm for someone facing a whole raft of charges,” says the man by way of greeting, and Fai keeps his smile firmly in place even when his fingers twitch in irritation, the thin chain jingling across the tabletop when his wrists jerk just a little in their cuffs.

“Sergeant Reynard told me that no one had pressed any, which is why I am not under arrest.”

Jacobs grunts. “Did she now?” He mutters something else, something derogatory Fai is clearly not meant to hear, and he ignores it; keeps his face passive, keeps his smile placating even as the detective starts to slowly pace before the table. “Do you even understand how much trouble you’re in?” he asks, turning and bringing his fists down in a sudden slam atop the table. If it’s meant to be intimidating, it’s really not, and Fai doesn’t quite manage to school his features into the appropriate response, blinking down at the hands  _thump_ ed before him.

“Um, no?” he says slowly. “It is my understanding that without charges, you cannot keep me here for very long.” Which is true enough, in all the worlds Fai has seen with a legal system like this one appears to be. Things like  _warrants_  and  _verdicts_  and  _presumption of innocence_  are needed before judgement and imprisonment, and those imprisoned have rights to their welfare. It’s strange but  _good_ , and enough of a comfort to keep him from clawing the walls at the mere thought of being locked away again.

“You’re in handcuffs,” sneers Jacobs, apparently peeved that his attempt at fear-mongering has not worked. “You’re not going anywhere.”

There’s a brief moment where Fai considers breaking the cuffs in question; a quick, sharp jerk of his wrists should do the trick, send the fragile links of these pathetic chains  _clink_ ing all across the floor. (He has seen chains, oh yes. This is  _nothing_.) He doesn’t though, lets his gaze go blank and reflective and watches the man’s confusion --and eventually annoyance-- dance across his features when Fai fails to rise to the bait.

Jacobs leans forward, trying to loom over the table, but he’s not quite tall enough to make it work. Fai isn’t particularly impressed by the attempt, either; he’s seen looming done right, and this is so far away from that it’s almost embarrassing. “Tell me how you got into that warehouse,” the detective snaps. “Did you know the gangs were doing an arms deal tonight? Is that why you came in-- to take advantage of their distraction?” The questions come in quick succession, barked out roughly, his final words accompanied by another slam of his fist on the much-abused tabletop.

Fai blinks slowly. “You want me to tell you how I got into the warehouse?”

“You’re damn right!” is the snarled response. Yet another slam on the tabletop; surely the man’s hands must be getting sore from the pounding they’re taking. “Don’t you think about making some story up, either-- I’ll know if you lie to me!”

Fai very much doubts that, considering this man doesn’t appear to realize exactly how much of a non-threat he actually is, but he was asked for the truth and the truth he’ll give. “Well,” he begins, and if he’s looking around the room to give the impression of thinking hard, it’s only because he’s wondering how easy it would be to break the reflective glass window and jump through to the room on the other side. “I believe the particular way Mokona travels through dimensions is related to her parsing of the theory of interconnection via portals, being that each dimension is connected to others through areas of relativity; that is to say, places where commonalities between parallel worlds --such as a common root of sentient life, cultural evolution or magical energy signatures, and some speculate that a common artifact that occurs within each dimension could act as a link, which in my personal experience is more than merely plausible-- resonate and therefore cause a thinning in the barriers of time and space between said parallel worlds due to this resonation, making it relatively simple to slip between them-- assuming of course one has a safe means to do so. If one finds these thin places, it’s only a small amount of magical energy that is required to provide enough pressure to create a portal --although it must be admitted that doing so for more than one living being is much more difficult, as it allows for a great increase in variables that must be considered during transit-- allowing one to slide between said barriers, and through the corresponding thin place in the next world along. Of course,” adds Fai, taking a certain vindictive pleasure in the way Jacobs’ eyes are glazing over, “what makes Mokona special is her ability to shield her passengers from the corresponding risks of the dimensional slipstream; there are many dangerous things that can be encountered in the null space between worlds, where magical energy is chaotic and no true control can be made over ones’ own actions, let alone the damage that could be done to the human psyche, and indeed, the soul. While it is easy to get ‘out’ of a world, relatively speaking, it is not so easy to get back ‘in’. Along with her abilities as a panacea, translating medium and her innate ability to detect and locate large energy waves, she truly is invaluable, and that is without touching on how adorable she is too.”

Fai smiles, and it is the kind of smile that could cut glass. “Did you get all that, or should I start again?”

The detective stares for a long moment. “What?” he says hoarsely.

“Basically, the cute fluffy creature dropped us in the warehouse by magic,” is Fai’s flat response. “We had nothing to do with whatever gang-war is happening in this world; we don’t even know this world’s name, and if I’m being frank, I don’t care either. I hurt the men in the warehouse because they hurt someone important to me, and the only reason I didn’t kill them is because then they could not warn others of what happens when you threaten what is mine.” Fai pauses for a moment; breathes deep against the rage that shakes in his ribcage, pushes down the beast clamouring to get out. (He is not thinking about the blood on Kurogane’s face, _he is not_.) “That, and I don’t like unnecessary death; I’ve seen too much of it. But an unwillingness to kill without good cause does not mean I am weak; it just means I am willing to wait for a cause good enough.”

“Are you trying to… intimidate me?” mumbles Jacobs, face contorting in a strange twist of confusion and rage.

Fai sighs. “No, detective, I am not. You’re not enough of a threat for me to bother.”

The good detective barks a strangled _what_ , voice rising in a furious pitch, but Fai really does not care; does not have it in him to give a damn about this small man and his small mind and his small fears. All of a sudden he has had enough-- there are people waiting for him, and he will not make them wait any longer. He stands up.

“Hey! Where the hell do you think you’re going?!”

“Away from you,” says Fai bluntly, and the small chains dragging from his wrists snap with no effort at all, their tiny metal links _clink_ ing to the tabletop in a rush of sound. The cuffs are next, shoved off his wrists with no care for the skin that scrapes bloody under the edge of metal; by the time Fai takes the dull circles of steel in his hands and crunches them into twisted useless lumps with barely a squeeze of his fingers, the red rawness has all but vanished. Fai drops the crushed scraps that remain onto the table with a careless _thunk_ , and brushes past the man who stares at him with jaw dropped and eyes bulging without a sound.

The door is locked, but not for long; it doesn’t take much force at all to punch the knob out through wood --the _crack_ of the lock splintering loud and ringing down the hallway beyond-- and jimmy it open.

“Come back here!” the detective roars, but Fai is not listening; now that he’s out of the cloyingly close room, he can taste Kurogane’s blood on the air and there is nothing that can stop him from following that scent and finding his family.

* * *

It’s some kind of medical bay that Kurogane finds himself in next, not wherever the hell the mage has been taken, and he’s none too pleased about it either. The sergeant can see that; she’s not blind. She’s stubborn though, insisting he get the scrape where bullet grazed flesh looked at, and while she’s not stupid enough to try to do it herself --there are very few people in all the worlds he’ll trust to touch him when he’s injured, and a stranger half-met sure as hell isn’t one of them-- she does stand by with folded arms, leaning against the wall and looking down at some kind of device in her hand as Kurogane takes a begrudging seat on the edge of a bench and lets the kid wipe away the blood painted down the side of his face.

“It’s not deep,” says Syaoran, dabbing at Kurogane’s hairline above his right eye with a damp wad of cotton that stinks of alcohol. “I don’t think you’re going to need stitches. But it is long-- the cut goes all the way back to above your ear. You’re bleeding again, too, now that I’m cleaning it.” The broken skin stings as he swabs it, that sharp chemical itch of disinfectant doing its job, and good thing too; the warehouse they’d crashed into had been filthy. “Close your eye-- I don’t want to get this in it.”

“It’s a head wound,” grunts Kurogane, “of course it’s bleeding.” He does as he’s told though, because even with one eye closed it’s easy to see the kid’s unhappy --the manjuu too, if the way she’s curled up in a fuzzy lump by his knee, tiny paws knotted in the cloth of his pants, is any sign-- and if sitting here and letting Syaoran bandage him up will go some way towards calming them both down, then so be it. He puts a hand on Mokona too; scoops her up and into his lap to stroke her ears carefully. He’s seen the mage do it enough, and she seems to like it, so.

“Mokona doesn’t like it when Kurogane gets hurt,” she mumbles, turning into his palm and clinging to his thumb --the false one, metal heavy beneath layers of simulated skin-- a small warm weight he curls his fingers around gently. “Syaoran doesn’t like it either, and especially not Fai.”

“I know,” and if his voice comes out soft, it’s because right now she needs that and it’s not like he has to shout all the damn time, either.                                                                    

“I’ll need to put a dressing on this,” says the kid, after a little while. His hands aren’t shaking any more, steady when he turns back to the medical kit the sergeant had offered them. “If you let it get infected, you’ll never hear the end of it.” Kurogane knows  _that_ without having to be told --can see all too clearly the look in blue eyes and the incoming trajectory of a chiding _bonk_ to the head-- so he doesn’t resist when a gauze pad is pressed gently to the wound and a long stripe of bandage wound around his head to hold it in place. “If we’re here for a while, maybe we should get it looked at by someone who knows what they’re doing,” continues Syaoran, and there’s a quiet note of worry in his voice; the world before this was not exactly safe, and there’s no way to tell if the world after they leave here will be any better.

“The three of you are travelling as a group, then?” says the sergeant, and they all start at the sound of her voice. Kurogane had not exactly forgotten she was there; just... tuned her out a bit.

Syaoran is the first to gain his composure, nodding slightly. “The four of us, Sergeant Reynard,” he says quietly. “We’ve been travelling together for a while now.”  _That’s_  an understatement, but it’s not like the kid is going to give her the whole complicated spiel about who they are and why they’re jumping from world to world, even assuming she’d believe them in the first place; there doesn’t look like there’s much magic at all in this world, from everything Kurogane has seen so far. Even if everyone has been oddly calm about the talking fluff ball in their midst.

She accepts the correction with a smile, looking down at the small creature curled up in Kurogane’s lap. “My apologies; the four of you then. I thought you weren’t locals; I’ve never seen clothes like that, but you could have been wearing costumes. Where exactly did you come from?” Her voice is pleasant enough, but there’s a hard edge to her words that says she won’t be lied to, her shoulders back and her spine straight.

This is normally the part where Fai chimes in with a laugh and smile, waving those clever hands dismissively and purring out  _oh, somewhere far away and unimportant; what matters is that we’re here now and in such lovely company too!_  in that sing-song lilt of his, neatly deflecting any untoward attention away from their somewhat patchy cover story. But Fai isn’t here now --his hand twitches, just a little, fingers curling helplessly and Mokona making a soft noise into his palm-- so he does what he has always done when someone wants an answer of him that he does not particularly wish to tell: looks her straight in the eye, and tells the truth.

“A different world from this one,” says Kurogane bluntly. The face of the woman watching them goes a little slack, her eyes opening a little wider; he can see disbelief warring across her features even as he speaks. “Lots of different worlds, if you want to get specific. We don’t come from the same place at all, and it’s going to be a long time before any of us can go home again.”

“A different...” she starts, and then stops, pausing mid-sentence to fix them all beneath a sharp gaze. Her eyes flick from Kurogane’s face, down to Syaoran, and then across to Mokona; Kurogane can practically see her thoughts turning over inside her skull. “Okay,” she says, huffing out a heavy breath. “Different worlds, fair enough; I’ll buy it. I ran you all through the ID scanner when you first walked through the station doors, and you didn’t show up in any system at all-- no birth registry, no licences, and no fingerprints.” So that’s what she’d been doing on that little data pad thing she held in her hands; checking if they were anywhere in the records she had access to. “According to all the information I have, you don’t officially exist, and it’s damn hard to just drop off the radar like that if you were born anywhere here, no matter how good your connections. It’s like you just magically appeared on this planet, popping up out of thin air.”

“That’s pretty close to how it happens,” says Syaoran. “Mokona transports us from world to world through her magic, and we did fall right out of the sky and into the middle of the two gangs at the warehouse. They weren’t too happy to see us,” says the kid dryly. “We got shot at.”

“Kuro-Daddy got hurt,” says Mokona, piping up in her clear, sweet voice from Kurogane’s lap. “That made Fai angry, so Fai beat up the bad guys. He’s scary when he’s angry, even if he doesn’t get angry very often. It just means that when he does, it’s really, really _bad_.”

The sergeant snorts a little. “If you’re Daddy, I take it blondie’s _Mummy_.” The look she gives Kurogane is too knowing for her own good, a kind of familiarity in her smile that prickles his skin.

Kurogane scowls-- or tries to at least; with the bandage wrapped around his head, it’s hard to frown properly. “You’re not close enough to us to call him that,” he says flatly, and the sergeant nods.

“Fair enough. Look, I’m not here to mess with your world-hopping family; in fact, it’s the opposite. What your-- what Fai did tonight has cleared out a large chunk of the gangs we’ve been having trouble with for years, busting up a major weapons deal that could have caused a full-blown gang war in my city if it went through, and I’m pretty damn grateful for that. Grateful enough I’m willing to throw my weight around and get you all out of here before Detective Jacobs can make any more trouble for you. Besides,” and this time her voice is tinted with something wry, “it doesn’t sound like I could hold you in a cell even if I stuck you in one.”

“We’d appreciate that,” the kid says, nodding at the sergeant. “We don’t mean you or this world any harm-- we’re just trying to keep moving, that’s all.” There’s nothing Kurogane has to add to that; it’s all true, anyway, and he’s got other things to worry about --blonde things, blue-eyed things, things with wicked smiles and scarred hands and the potential for devastating destruction and unlimited kindness both-- besides.

“Take me to where the ma-- where Fai is.” This Sergeant Reynard might have accepted the manjuu being magical quickly enough, but he’s not about to show all the cards in their hand so easily; she doesn’t need to know about Fai’s magic just yet. “We just want to get out of here. Please,” he adds begrudgingly, because if the mage were here he’d make a smart comment about _Kuro-brute has such poor manners, it’s a wonder I put up with him at all!_ and these days Kurogane actually listens to what comes tripping out of that catty mouth. (Fai doesn’t lie anymore, and that makes his words worth listening too. Most of the time.)

The sergeant’s face hardens, enough that Syaoran stiffens and Kurogane feels tension ripple through his arms, his hand falling from Mokona’s ears and clenching into a fist. “I know you do, but that might not be so easy; not with Detective Jacobs having him in for questioning. Jacobs is like a dog after a bone-- he won’t leave Fai alone until he’s satisfied he can prove he’s done something enough to get him arrested.”

“But Fai hasn’t done anything wrong!” bursts out Mokona, and abruptly Kurogane is fired with pride that the manjuu sees nothing wrong at all in Fai defending them from _the bad guys_ , even if she doesn’t like it when people get hurt.

“Won’t matter to Jacobs,” says the sergeant bluntly. “He’s the kind of man who _fills quotas_.” She growls the last two words, temper breaking through that professional facade as she pushes herself away from the wall she was leaning on and shoves her data pad into the pocket of her uniform. “Look. Follow me back through to the main office, and I’ll see what I can do to get--”

There’s a _crack!!_ like a gunshot, ringing loud through the open door of the medical bay, and the sergeant starts, hand falling to her holster and her eyes going hard in the same moment Kurogane stands up, Mokona clinging to the folds of his tunic. A shout follows the echo of that sound down the hall, something that sounds like _come back here_ , and instinct makes Kurogane hand the manjuu over to the kid as he moves for the door. “Wait here,” he says over his shoulder, but the glint in Syaoran’s eye says he probably won’t, and that’s fine; the kid can take care of himself and Mokona just fine.

The sergeant has her gun out, muzzle pointed safely down, her face hard and determined. “If that’s what I think it is, it’ll be your man coming to find you,” she says, sounding half-amused, half-disapproving.

Something hot and sharp twists in Kurogane’s chest, because he _knows_ it is, knows it like he knows the stutter of his heartbeat, knows it like he knows only a few things in this world: with a bone-deep surety that could move mountains if he needed to. “Yeah,” he says, breathes out slow. “That’ll be him. I’m not gonna leave him waiting.”

“If I asked you to wait you’d probably break the wall down,” mutters the sergeant, and yeah, Kurogane probably would-- but she makes no move to stop him, proving she’s a quick on the uptake as he figured she was. No one gets to the rank of sergeant by playing dumb. But in the hallway, there’s a man coming for him, and Kurogane isn’t going to wait here to be found. He shoulders past her, and out through the door.

* * *

Fai can hear Jacobs following him down the hallway --the _tock-tock-tock_ of too-clean shoes stepping over tile, the _shufff_ of cloth moving against cloth as he jogs to catch up and shorten the space between them-- but he honestly does not care to even look back at the man, because before him there is a half-open doorway, some few dozen strides away, and shouldering out from its shadow is Kurogane, tall and bandaged and frowning, and this is all his eyes care to see. He watches the frown ease from Kurogane’s face when Fai catches his gaze, his brow smoothing where the bandage leaves it bare, and before Fai can stop it a smile curls the corner of his mouth.

He is tired, and he is worried --still worried, so worried, enough that it will be some time before he is wholly calm again at the sight of white gauze crossing dusky skin-- but this is _relief_ , and it shakes his ribs as he draws in a stuttering breath. “Kuro-sama,” he calls, voice echoing down the long hallway. Kurogane takes a step towards him, out from the doorway; and then another and another, determined stride eating up the too-wide distance between them.

“Tch,” says his Kuro-sama, mouth twisting in that way it always does when Kurogane would have himself frown against the smile that threatens to break across his face. Fai’s heart swells to see it, a heavy weight in his chest that spreads warmth all through him. “Took you long enough. Starting to think I’d have to bust you out mys--”

“ _Stop right there!_ ” barks a voice, the same voice Fai would rather never hear again, and his steps falter at the sound. He does not listen though, keeps walking even as Kurogane breaks to a wary halt, his eyes sharp where they cut from Fai’s face and to the man behind him. “ _I said, STOP!”_

 _No_ , thinks Fai, and does not; the rattle of a gun being unholstered is loud in the silence that follows, and he knows without seeing that the barrel rises, muzzle pointing square at his back. He is tired, and he is worried, and he is _angry_ , and he will not be stopped, not when he is so close to his family again. In the lee of the doorway, he sees Syaoran, Mokona riding atop his messy hair; following them out the door is the sergeant, her dark face enraged when she sees the detective.

“ _Jacobs_!” she snarls, and in her voice there is _command_. (It is unlikely she will be only a sergeant for very much longer.) “What the _fuck_ do you think you’re doing?!”

“He’s resisting arrest, Reynard-- I’m doing exactly what I have to.” There is a _kkck-chnk_ sound Fai understands to be the noise of a handgun being cocked, ready to fire; before him, Kurogane’s eyes widen, tension rippling down his body and into his legs as his muscles tighten and his stance shifts, ready for the urgent, violent movement that he is capable of --so fast, for someone merely a man; so skilled, for someone merely a warrior-- but Fai is faster still and it is his anger that boils over at long last. He turns around.

“Put the gun down, detective.” Jacobs’ face is as white as chalk, as white as bone. Sweat breaks out across his brow, fat splotches that mottle his cheeks where they fall.

(He doesn’t need to snarl to be frightening, doesn’t need to shout to make his fury heard; it is enough to speak softly and let poison drip from his voice, each syllable burning like acid as it leaves his lips. He has never needed anything else to wound, only the sharp edge of his tongue as it lashes with words --soft words, quiet words, but words calculated to _hurt_ \-- and words alone.)

“Or what?” sneers the detective. His hands are not shaking, steady where they are curled around the stock of the gun, but his voice is; wobbling with a note of fear that Fai is just a little gratified to hear. Just a little.

“Or I will make you wish you had,” says Fai quietly, quiet enough that those behind might not be able to hear. He’s not lying either, not now, not with the fine threads of his control snapping one by one; he can feel the edge of each nerve fraying as his vision tightens on the barrel of the gun until it is all he can see. It is pointed square at his chest, steady still even as the detective’s expression breaks, mouth twisting in wretched fright.

(All of a sudden he is grateful that his children behind him cannot see his face.)

But if Jacobs is an idiot --and by the gods, he surely is: no brains at all to rattle around in that hollow skull. No smart man would _ever_ draw a weapon on someone like Fai-- he’s apparently not a coward, because his shoulders only straighten and his teeth grit as sweat falls down his face. “I will not be threatened,” he spits, clearly determined, and for a moment Fai almost respects him. (Almost. The man’s blatant idiocy goes a long way towards destroying any chance he had at even begrudging admiration.) But then the barrel swings wide, a small and enormously significant movement that points it away from Fai’s chest and clean over his shoulder--

\--and directly at the man that stands a small distance behind him.

He gives no warning. He moves without thought, without fear; closes the distance between himself and the weapon in barely a flicker of an eye, closes his hand around the barrel as blue light flares between his fingers. Jacobs screams. _Metal_ screams, breaking and twisting where his magic loops in tight crushing spirals, rends it to splinters and shards and greasy iron grit that trickles through his fingers and to the floor. The detective moves to jerk away, but Fai’s hand is faster-- he seizes a thick wrist and squeezes just hard enough that the man whimpers, bending forward in agony; Fai drags him close with a brutal wrenching tug, the _crunch_ - _crack-pop_ of a shoulder joint dislocating a noisy protest to the cruel force of his hold.

Distantly, he hears Syaoran shout his name.

“ _You bastard_ ,” groans Jacobs, sinking to his knees. He stinks of fear, _reeks_ of it. “How fucking _dare_ y--” Fai breaks his nose with a single, sharp smack to the face, the crack ringing loud and satisfying. He does not draw back for a second blow, does not need to; the merest twitch of his shoulder is enough to make the detective scramble back, wriggling out of his grip and sprawling panting on the hallway floor. His good arm, the one that does not hang limp by his side, skitters across his belly, sliding down to the second holster on his right hip--

“Don’t!” calls out the sergeant, and her voice is urgent, her steps heavy as she runs across the tiles. “Just give up, Jacobs! _You_!” she snaps, rounding on Fai, and her eyes are hard and glittering. “Back away, hands out to your side, keep ‘em open.” It’s an easy direction to follow and Fai does so instinctively. If he needs to strike again it will not slow him down at all. “Fucking hell,” she mutters, crouching down beside the prone man. “You really did a number on him, blondie. Didn’t even see you _move_.”

“Bon’t douch me,” moans Jacobs thickly, curling away from her; he swats away the hand that hovers over his shoulder. “Jusd-- fudking _arwesd him_ , sarwgend! He assaulded an opficer!” There’s blood on his lip, his fingers hovering over the swell of his nose as it reddens, and the slurring of his voice is almost funny. Almost. Fai doesn’t really feel like laughing.

Sergeant Reynard’s eyes are calculating, lifting from Jacobs’ face and up to Fai, searching as they meet his own. “Looked like self-defence to me, detective. You did point a gun at an illegally-detained man with no provocation, and then aimed it square at the innocent man behind him.” Her face hardens. “An unarmed bystander, who was not involved in any way; in fact, one that was _injured_.” Fai wants to scoff at ‘injured’ --he’s seen Kurogane wreak more devastation with one hand than an army of men could with two each-- but something tightens in his throat, making his breath whistle thinly. Even over the reek of sweat and fear, he can still smell his Kuro-sama’s blood; thinned out by disinfectant and the scent of sterile cotton, but there nonetheless and the knowledge that he would have torn Jacobs’ arm from his body completely if he’d squeezed off a shot weighs heavy on his mind. “Considering you have no warrant of arrest and you attempted to hold him for questioning without due explanation of our legal system --these men aren’t from around here, they’re completely new to our laws-- a lot of what you did today could land you in front of internal affairs should you try to pursue this. If Fai wishes to press charges, detective, you’ll be in very hot water.”

A lot of what she says Fai does not understand, but it doesn’t matter; it’s clear by the look in her eye she knows he cannot be restrained, by law or otherwise.

“This is _bullshid_ ,” mutters Jacobs, still clutching his nose.

“Hey.” Fai doesn’t jump at the big hand that lands heavy on his shoulder, does not even turn around at its owners silent approach; but Kurogane’s fingers curl warmly and the press of his thumb is firm and welcome where it lines up neatly with the back of his neck. Without meaning to, he softens; feels the tension in his spine melt by inches as he leans back into that steady hand, and the soft hitch of calluses catching on the grain of his tunic as Kurogane’s fingers squeeze is a balm to frayed nerves. “You alright?”

He’s not. Not now, not in this moment. But he will be, given time and space and a chance to be alone with this man, the one whose hands are heavy and warm and whose eyes are sharp enough to cut through whatever mask Fai would hide behind. “Not yet,” he murmurs, because it’s _honest_ , and Kurogane has only ever asked for the truth from him.

“Hn,” says Kurogane, which could mean anything, but Fai knows it to be _alright, later then_. His hand does not move from Fai’s shoulder.

The sergeant stands upright, moves to haul her colleague to his feet-- but it is _Syaoran_ who steps up, closes his hand ungently around the detective’s uninjured arm, and drags him up to stand without letting go. Mokona, still firmly attached to Syaoran’s hair, attempts as ferocious a glare as a creature the size and plumpness of a large sweet bun can manage, leaving Jacobs clearly unnerved. “Dat bwue wight,” he mumbles, staring at first Mokona and then Fai, his eyes wide and wild. “Magid!”

“I’d get that arm looked at, detective,” says Syaoran mildly, letting go; Jacobs hisses at the forceful squeeze of his fingers, and Fai is reminded that Syaoran is more a man than boy these days, and one whose eyes can be so hard and cold they are a mirror of his father’s. Everyone present understands his words to be a threat, even if nothing is said of it, even if the sergeant looks startled to realise it.

“This is a nightmare,” she mutters, looking from face to face and pausing finally on Kurogane, at the bandages wrapping his head. “You three --four, sorry-- wait here. I’m taking Jacobs to the medical bay; I’ll deal with getting you out of here when I’m done. I _don’t_ want to come back to find you’ve moved, hear me?” There’s no force she can bring to bear that can stop them if they really want to leave, and she knows it, but Syaoran nods and plays lip service to her all the same in his role as spokesman for the group.

“Yes, sergeant. We’ll wait right here.”

It’s only when she disappears back through the medical bay door with the bedraggled Jacobs in tow that Mokona launches herself at Fai’s face, startling a half-gasp of laughter out of him as he brings up a hand to intercept. “Fai! You are so _bad_ , making Mokona worry! Syaoran was worried and Kurogane was worried and we were all very unhappy with you! Never do that again!” She looks at him fiercely --the expression ridiculous on her tiny, sweet face-- waggling a small paw in reproof, and this time Fai really does laugh, something hard and cold in his chest cracking open and leaving him all the lighter for it as the sound bubbles up and out.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, letting his fingers drift softly through silky fur as the small creature nuzzles close. “I’m so sorry, Mokona, I promise I’ll never let it happen again.” He’s not merely apologising to her, but to all of them at once, and that Syaoran smiles at him and Kurogane’s hand squeezes warm where it curls around his shoulder is sign enough they understand.

“You better not!” comes the chiding reprimand, in Mokona’s high clear voice, and she’s so loud --and so close to his ear-- that Fai almost misses Kurogane’s approving grunt.

“ _Good_.”

* * *

“Haaahh... _PUU~!_ ”

Clothes fountain across the bed in a tide of cloth and jingling accessories, a leather belt propelled so far by Mokona that it slaps the opposite wall with a dull _thunk_ and slides down, lost somewhere beneath the hotel furnishings. Kurogane sighs, palm meeting forehead in a gesture that is far too common these days. “There has got to be a better way to pack our luggage,” he mutters.

Syaoran winces. “Yes. Perhaps if we packed everything into a clothes chest first and had Mokona swallow that instead?”

The manjuu, puffing up proud on the edge of the bed’s headboard, pouts outrageously. “Hey! Mokona does the best Mokona can! If Syaoran wants his clothes neat, maybe Syaoran should _fold them_ before they get swallowed up!”

The kid flushes (because yeah, when it comes down to it, he and the mage are as bad as each other when it comes to taking care of their belongings, and he’s got no-one to blame but himself for the sorry state of his wardrobe) but Kurogane just rolls his eyes and goes back to wading through the mountain of stuff spewed all over the bedcovers. How the hell did they end up with this much crap? He could have sworn that they had less stuff than this, but the evidence is too much to deny; it takes him a good five minutes of rummaging to come up with an outfit he last saw the mage wearing in a world like this, slinging a loose cotton shirt and jeans over one shoulder while he hunts around for underclothes. Boots, at least, are acceptable in every world they’ve landed in so far; he won’t have to try and find Fai shoes, but a change of socks will probably be appreciated.

The manjuu is still lecturing the kid when he grabs himself a change of clothes and the large medical kit --the one that is filled to the brim with a mish-mash of medicines and tinctures, bandages and synthetic skin from Piffle; the one they restock in every world at the earliest opportunity they get-- juggling it all into his arms to leave a hand free so he can ruffle the kid’s hair. “Don’t pick a fight with the manjuu, you’re not gonna win,” he snorts, clapping Syaoran on the shoulder as he passes by. “Don’t stay up too late either.”

“Kurogane-san,” the kid says, stopping him halfway to the door. “Say goodnight to Fai-san for us.” Both of them are watching him with worried eyes, the kid and the manjuu, and idly Kurogane wonders when it became his lot in life to be responsible for all three of them. It’s an idle thought, not a malicious one, so he just huffs a sigh with more exasperation than he really feels.

“Alright. We’ll see you in the morning.”

The hallway of the hotel is empty this time of night, the lamplights low and the curtains drawn over the windows, and Kurogane encounters exactly no people as he crosses it and unlocks the room he’s sharing with the mage. (It’s standard now, to split themselves between two rooms to sleep, and it’s a change he’s grateful for; for someone so small and fuzzy, the manjuu’s snoring is _damn loud_.) They may have gotten rooms here easy enough --a chance to pawn some of their collection of inter-dimensional trinkets for currency and a note from the sergeant going a long way to ease any suspicions about their motley group-- but he’s in no mood for questions, or the people that ask them.

The main lights above the bed are off when he comes in --the room dark and empty, bedcovers rumpled and cold, the mage’s clothes discarded in a crumpled pile on the floor-- but the door to the bathroom is open a crack, and warm light and warmer steam swirl through that tiny gap. So Kurogane toes off his boots, drops his armful on the plush armchair by the bedside, grabs the medical kit and enters the bathroom without bothering to knock.

“I’d ask if that’s you, but considering there’s no one else brave enough to interrupt a wizard when he’s bathing, I doubt it could be anyone else.” Fai’s voice is as dry as the air is damp, echoing through the tiny room from behind the shower curtain, his silhouette turning under the showerhead that pours water down over him.

“The kid says goodnight,” says Kurogane in response, _thunk_ ing down the medical kit atop the bathroom basin. “He’ll probably be folding clothes all night where the manjuu spat them up all over his bed.” The locks on the case snap open with a ringing click, the lid opening into a tier of collapsible racks, each one stuffed with all kinds of medical junk; Kurogane doesn’t need to rummage around to find the bandages and the salve because he packed this case himself and it is organised. “He’s worried about you-- the manjuu, too.” Behind the curtain Fai’s shadow stills.

“It seems the both of us have given our children cause to worry today,” he says quietly, barely audible over the _hushhhh_ of the shower. And then, louder, “You should shower before you change your dressing.”

Kurogane sets a clean roll of gauze and a small jar of the herbal salve the princess’ own priest gave them the last time they were in Clow atop the basin. “I intend to.” He strips away the dirty dressing wrapped around his head easily, tossing it into the wastebasket so that he can check the bloody graze under the stark overhead light, and his clothes follow suit; he folds them neatly and leaves them in a dry space on the bathroom tile, and when he opens the curtains to the shower and steps in over the lip of the bath, Fai --dripping wet, hair hanging damp and tangled across his face, head bowed low and gaze hidden-- doesn’t make a sound as he moves aside so Kurogane can ease under the water.

“It’s not as bad as I thought,” he says, after a little while. Kurogane, trying to wash the wound without getting too much of the annoying floral soap the hotel provides in either it or his eyes, just grunts in response, and it’s almost startling when Fai’s hands land gently on his chest, thin fingers trembling. “Let me see.” Those thin fingers slide up from chest to shoulders and then higher still, unsteady where they curl around his cheek and jaw to tilt his face to a better angle; water drips down his nose and runs off his chin, disappearing into the small space between them. Kurogane bows his head just enough that Fai need not stretch himself up on his toes, watching the mage’s mouth pull into a thin, tight line as he inspects the wound. “If the bullet had hit you just a little bit further up,” and two scarred fingertips trace his temple gently, “you could have died.”

An instant death, probably, or a lingering one in a wakeless sleep as his brain bled out into his skull; Kurogane knows enough about head wounds --has dealt enough of them, in his wilder days-- to get that much. “If it had hit me in the chest, or the face, or the throat, I could have died as well,” he says bluntly, and when Fai’s face blanches he claps a heavy hand on a bony shoulder and drags him close, under the fall of the water and into his arms. “I could die any number of ways in any number of worlds, and not only through chance,” he murmurs, mostly into damp hair. Fai makes a soft, helpless sound. “So could you, or the kid, or the manjuu, if something happened.” The mage is shivering a little now, and not just from fear of what could have been; he knows this man well enough to see the signs of his rising temper before it breaks.

“Don’t say things like that,” hisses Fai, and his hands fall to Kurogane’s shoulders, nails biting tight into slick skin.

“Why not? Talking about it isn’t gonna make it happen. You can’t break every time you think I’m hurt, mage.” He lifts a hand, tips up Fai’s chin and the _ache_ he sees in blue eyes makes him sigh. “In case you haven’t noticed, I get hurt kinda a lot.”

“Oh, I’ve noticed,” barks Fai, a sharp kind of sound that’s not quite a laugh. “Believe me, _I have noticed_ , Kuro-sama.” He’s woken Kurogane from a sound sleep before, tracing the edges of the scars on his back with the ghosts of his fingertips, and when Kurogane had stirred enough under that trembling touch that to feign sleep still would be a lie, Fai had rolled neatly away and pretended nothing had happened at all. Fai opens his mouth, once, twice, as though trying to speak; no sound comes out and he sighs instead, long and slow and shuddering. If this were happening in Infinity, no doubt the mage -- _vampire_ \-- would have spat something acidic like _seems to me you can’t help but put yourself in danger with no thought of consequence, Kurogane_ and those tall, bitter walls between them would have risen even higher. But this isn’t Infinity. They wouldn’t be nearly this close now if it were. (Or this naked, come to think of it.)

“You know I can smell your blood when you get hurt,” says Fai abruptly, letting his hands drop; they slide down Kurogane’s back beneath the water, dragging over old scar tissue with no gentleness at all. (He likes that; likes that the mage won’t coddle him, won’t treat him as weaker from those tattered, long-healed tears in his skin. Scars don’t make you weaker because you’ve been hurt before, after all; they make you _stronger_ for having survived the getting of them in the first place.)

“Mm,” agrees Kurogane, because he does know that-- but had, in fact, not thought of it at all until the mage brought it up. Well, fuck; _that_ explains a lot.

“It makes me _angry_ ,” says Fai, voice warming with that same silky anger Kurogane has heard before, bore the brunt of in Infinity, saw gleaming sharp and hot in slitted golden eyes. “It makes me so, so angry, Kuro-sama. My blood boils and it twists like a living thing in my gut. It makes me want to hurt the ones that made you bleed, tear them apart and rip them into tiny shreds until all I can smell is _their_ blood and not yours.” Fai swallows hard, and it sounds almost painful; his throat works as he turns his head to the side, looking away beneath the wet tangle of his fringe. “I would have killed them all at the warehouse, but for the fact it meant I would have stopped _hurting them_. I nearly killed the detective; nearly tore his arm clean off his body, and I would not have stopped there.”

Slowly, Kurogane raises a hand; curls it so gently under Fai’s chin, tilts his face back just enough that tangled hair slides messily away from his eyes. In the hot steamy damp of the shower, even in Kurogane’s own shadow, they are bright and burning _blue_.

“I can’t blame it on the vampire,” says Fai. His hands curl tight around Kurogane’s hips, the blunt edge of his fingernails scraping where his fingers spasm. “It’s not the beast that makes me like this, it’s just _me_.”

Fai isn’t expecting what Kurogane does next --too caught up in his own self-disgust, probably; and no matter what it takes, one day Kurogane will free him from that, even if it’s years from now-- so he puts up no protest, still and shocked in his arms when Kurogane dips his head low and kisses him. It’s not a gentle kiss, by any means; there is too much heat in it, too much wanting to be gentle at all, and that’s something Kurogane can’t help-- but that’s not what Fai needs right now, anyway, and it’s barely a breath before the mage is melting into his arms, the whole of his body pressing warm and wet and trembling against Kurogane as his mouth opens and his hands tighten hungrily.

Gentle can be later, and then he will take his time; take this man to pieces, until he is breathless and broken, until he can be rebuilt, remade into the strength and peace he has earned for himself. They’ve both seen too much death to have clean hands --innocence is for children and those lucky souls who have never lashed out in pain or anger-- but the past is behind them and the future holds no promises. Maybe there will be blood spilt tomorrow, and maybe there won’t; it’s not important. As long as he has these hands to hold, Kurogane can’t give a damn how bloody they might be.

“Hah,” says Fai, breathing heavy against Kurogane’s mouth. “You really, _mmnm_ , don’t care how violent I am, do you?”

Kurogane doesn’t answer; lets the wandering rise of his hands speak for themselves, and it’s not long at all before Fai is biting at his lips, mouth trailing down wetly to scrape teeth over the slope of his throat, and the fall of hot water over skin that tightens with need is too much of a distraction, besides. “Hah,” says Fai again, twisting in his grip when the pad of Kurogane’s thumb --the metal one, heavy beneath its synthetic skin-- drags slowly across the arc of his hipbone; the patter of Kurogane’s false fingertips across his flat belly is almost too much, startling a groan from the mage as his hips arch into it, driving Kurogane’s hand lower, lower.

“Ah, _hell_ ,” hisses Fai, nearly cracking his head on tile when Kurogane closes mechanical fingers about him --carefully, oh, _carefully_ ; he has learnt control with this arm, this weapon just as surely as he has with every sword he’s ever wielded-- stroking slow against skin that slickens beneath his touch, and grins into the arch of Fai’s neck. “In this, _aha-ah-ah-ahh_ , tiny little shower... really?” gasps the mage.

“Anywhere,” counters Kurogane, biting down just hard enough on the slope of Fai’s shoulder that he wrenches a moan from that shuddering frame. “ _Everywhere_.”

The cry that rises from Fai’s throat is hungry, _desperate_ , making Kurogane’s head swim as the sound rings across the wet tile; he has barely a moment to slip his hand free before Fai slams him back against the wall with startling strength, forcing a knee between his thighs, and it fires his blood to know that Fai is so far gone he’s forgetting to be careful. “ _You bastard_ ,” groans Fai, surging up to kiss him. “You _love it_ when I’m like this,” and yeah, Kurogane really fucking does; it’s a fierce thing between them, all teeth and heat and wet, and when Fai’s hands land in his hair, long clever fingers pulling, _pulling_ , he arches into like he always has--

\--only to break away with a pained yelp when pain spikes through his head and sparks right across the bullet wound he’d totally forgotten about. _Fuck!_

Fai stills immediately, panting and miserable. “Your head--”

“--is _fine_ ,” growls Kurogane, because it _was_ , right up until the point Fai pulled his hair. If he didn’t let losing a fucking arm stop him, sure as hell a shallow graze that isn’t even bleeding isn’t going to.

But Fai is still frowning at him, his eyes worried, and that’s really not what Kurogane wants to see right now. “Maybe we should--”

“If you say stop, I’m going to smack you, and then we’ll see who has a head wound,” says Kurogane flatly.

There’s a moment where Fai stares at him, teetering on the edge of either tears or laughter, and it’s the latter that wins out in the end. “Alright,” he sighs, hands falling to curl behind Kurogane’s neck, “ _alright_. I see I’m clearly not going to win in an argument with Kuro-stubborn about this.” The nickname is a good sign, and so’s the heavy sway of Fai’s body against his own, the mage rising up on his toes to stand hip to hip with the water and the steam swirling hot around them both. “At least let’s get out of the shower,” he murmurs, “so I don’t have to worry about you slipping over.”

Kurogane could make a smart comment here about the likelihood of a ninja slipping over in the shower... or he could let Fai pat him down with the towels and wrap his head in a clean dressing before dragging the mage to the waiting bed on the other side of the bathroom wall. Yeah, there’s no question about what he’s choosing, here.

“Come on then,” he says, breathing the words hot against Fai’s mouth. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

* * *

Fai takes maybe two steps out of the bathroom and into the cool, lightless room beyond before Kurogane grabs him by the elbow and pulls him close, and in the shadows of this small space --the one that is, for this moment at least, wholly theirs-- it’s easier than expected to look away from the stark white of the bandage wound neatly around his head, damp hair dripping dark where it falls over white gauze. It’s on the tip of his tongue to say something, what he doesn’t know; but then Kurogane kisses him before the words reach fruition, and the sound melts in his mouth into a helpless kind of moan.

“Hold on,” murmurs Fai, after a long moment spent clinging to those broad, broad shoulders, earning himself a sharp nip to the chin for his trouble, but his lover is clearly in no mood to listen.

“No,” says Kurogane, all but growling the word into his ear. “If I give you time to think, you’ll work yourself into a state again. _Bed_ , mage,” and this with a firm push backwards into the darkness beyond the slash of the light that spills from the bathroom. His feet slip over carpet, taking hasty steps back; Kurogane follows, and his hands are not idle, branding hot where they stroke up his arms or glide over his belly, each heady touch making Fai shiver at the contact.

“Yes, but-- _ah!_ ” The edge of the bed meets the back of Fai’s legs, toppling him down onto the covers; he catches Kurogane’s wrist as he falls, and almost expects to be crushed against the covers in a rush of hot skin and hard muscle but for the sudden roll the room takes, Kurogane twisting as he goes down and dragging Fai atop him in a move so smooth Fai has to believe it’s been practiced. “Hey,” he tries again, breathless where he’s landed atop a generous spread of warm and yielding lover, but this time his voice itself betrays him, crackling with a gasp as a seeking hand --big hand, rough hand, clever hand-- slides up the inside of his thigh with obvious purpose.

“Less talking,” says Kurogane, and it’s a common enough complaint that Fai can’t help but laugh softly, head bowed and back arching into that touch, and the _smile_ on Kurogane’s face, the one he can see even in the dim light, is one that will never cease to speed his heart where it flutters against his ribs.

“Alright,” says Fai, giving in at last. He’s determination in spades, but some battles can’t be won-- and some bring glory in defeat, besides. “If you’re sure,” he can’t help but adding, unable to stop one hand from reaching up to brush just gently against gauzy cotton, but Kurogane intercepts his wrist and presses a kiss to the heel of his palm, lips warm and soft.

“I’m sure about you,” is the soft counter spoken against his skin, and it all but punches the breath from Fai’s chest.

He has no more protests, now, no more assurances to ask for; that the man beneath him _wants_ to be there is evident in every hard, hot line of the body that presses up against him, dragging him down into the sure embrace of those arms. Just-damp skin slips against just-damp skin, and though the room is not warm, sweat breaks out across Fai’s hairline at the close, dragging stroke of the hand that curls around him with complete confidence. It’s confidence _earned_ ; Kurogane has made him fall apart a thousand times before in a thousand different ways, and the teasing drag of those skilled, callused fingers is no exception now.

He hides his face in the hollow of Kurogane’s throat, pants helplessly against his lover’s hammering pulse, and for a moment the white-hot need to sink his teeth in just _there_ is almost blinding. But the urge passes as quickly as it comes, the wash of heat up his spine and the tension coiling where that hand strokes in long, teasing pulls enough to overrule the vampire’s hunger. (For now, at least; his Kuro-sama is always at his most deliciously yielding after sex, and the taste of his blood so much the sweeter in that post-coital haze. Later, perhaps, and he looks forward to it.)

“Kuro-sama,” he manages, and then nothing else, because Kurogane is chuckling into his hair as his hand slides free, and that’s distracting enough that Fai has to kiss him again. And again.

“Come on,” murmurs Kurogane when they part, tugging lazily at Fai’s bottom lip with his teeth. “You know what I want.” He leans back against the pillows heaped at the head of the bed, throwing one arm --heavy with cleanly-defined muscle that ripples as he moves, the motion travelling down his shoulder and across his chest to drag Fai’s gaze along with it-- behind his head to lie against, the other teasing sly fingers in languid lines over Fai’s hip; and then his hand grips tight to the curve of bone, fierce fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, and the sweet pressure of it drops into Fai’s belly like a stone, trailing heat in its wake.

Fai shudders. “Fuck,” he groans, tipping his head down to rest against a perfectly sculpted collarbone. His beautiful, bashful ninja would have been embarrassed once, a long time ago; but here, now, with Kurogane grinning up at him, sharp eyes dark and smouldering in the low light, it hits Fai like a bolt of lightning that he lost control of this the moment he was toppled back onto the mattress-- and it lights him up with a happiness so fierce he can barely keep it in. “You’re going to be the death of me, Kuro-sama,” he laughs, already sliding backward, and off the edge of the bed before he realises he has no clue where the lube actually is. “Where--?”

“In the kit. Don’t take too long.”

He doesn’t.

“Here,” says Kurogane, shifting up onto his left elbow; the almost-invisible seam where metal meets the slope of his shoulder rolls smoothly with the motion. He reaches out to pull Fai down to kneel atop the covers, catching him by the wrist and sliding the small glass vial from his hand. “Let me.” He spills oil slick across Fai’s palm, smoothes it wet and shining over each finger, and when he is done he lays back once more, gliding his wet hand down the flat of Fai’s belly just to make him tremble. “Well?” A dark eyebrow rises, careless of the bandage that crosses his brow.

He’s arrogant and expectant, and Fai loves it; loves every inch of the man lying spread before him like a feast. “I want you to say it,” says Fai, catching one long leg under the knee --gliding his fingers across the slope of that thigh, just to feel the thickness of it-- and pushing it up and back; for someone with so much muscle mass, Kurogane is shockingly flexible, taking the bend easily and hooking his knee over Fai’s shoulder with a groan of contentment. “I know what you want, but I want to _hear it_ , Kuro-sama,” he purrs.

Kurogane snorts, amused. “Of course you do, you perverted bastard. Can never just give it to me-- you always have to talk my ear off first.”

Fai grins. “You love it.”

“I love you,” says Kurogane, simply, and Fai-- _well_. He is an old man, older than the youth of his face suggests; older than the natural timespan of a human life should allow. He has lived and he has loved and he has _lost_ , over and over again, until he had nothing left; until the hard cold stone that was his heart all but ceased to beat in his chest. But time and kindness and the smile of a young girl had softened him up, and the laughter of a magical construct had made him warm, and the hope in the eyes of a boy who fought for his princess had made him crack, just a little bit; after that, perhaps it was inevitable --hitsuzen, always and only hitsuzen-- that this man should splinter him open entirely.

He flushes, face burning hot as he bows his head low, turns into the arch of Kurogane’s leg over his shoulder to hide his blush. “I--”

“I know,” says Kurogane bluntly, not unkindly. Even without looking, Fai knows what his eyes say right now, how his face softens. “Now if you’d get on with it? I want you to _fuck me_ , mage, and you’re keeping me _waiting_.”

“Yes,” says Fai, sighing out the word on a shaking breath. He kisses the inside of Kurogane’s knee, just once; lets his hand slid down to Kurogane’s hip to get a better grip, and presses slick fingers up and in with no warning at all. “I’m sorry I made you wait,” he murmurs, and Kurogane grunts appreciatively as he spreads his thighs, tilting his hips up and into that touch. Fai’s fingers curl --he knows what his lover needs-- and Kurogane makes a bitten-off sound through gritted teeth that raises the fine hair on the nape of Fai’s neck, burns heat down his face and throat to spill over his chest in a warm flush that tightens his nipples and rolls heavy in the base of his belly.

He’s quick about it but he’s _thorough_ , and when Kurogane is ready --sweat dappling his brow and his head thrown back, the rippling muscle of his stomach twitching, throat bare and rolling as he swallows heavily-- it’s easy to slid his hand free and stroke his way up Kurogane’s thigh, the slick of the oil leaving shining trails on dusky, damp skin. “Come on,” Kurogane says again, just a touch breathless; his other leg rises, dragging against the sheets so that his knee presses against Fai’s hip, nudging him impatiently. “Come _in_.”

The heat of it catches his breath every time, makes him shudder and shake; but Fai gains purchase on the slippery-smooth sheets and the heavy hand Kurogane curls about his hip helps drag him closer, deeper. There’s a moan welling up in his throat, but he doesn’t stop it, knows Kurogane likes it better when he can’t control himself; he stutters out the sound against the hot, flat plane of his lover’s chest as he bends over, each breath a hungry gasp that catches strands of his tangled hair as it falls across his face. Kurogane mumbles something, voice too soft for it to be heard, but the rumble of his words rolls deep through his chest and Fai feels it like he feels every shift of the body below him, his skin tight and tingling every place they touch.

When that heavy hand rises from his side to card slowly through his hair, fingers catching in sweaty tangles, Fai rolls his hips forward in a slow, tentative pull- _push_ ; Kurogane’s leg slides to the crook of his arm, and Fai bows his head against the slick drag of heat that tightens around him as he moves. “Can I?” he manages, shuddering to a halt; even if the man beneath him is all but shouting _yes, yes, yes_ with how his hips lift in a welcome counter to this first thrust asking is _important_ , especially now.

“ _Yes_ ,” groans Kurogane, voice thick, his fingers tightening in Fai’s hair. “’s fine, it’s good.” His other leg, the one not slung heavily over Fai’s elbow, hooks about his hip; the heel of Kurogane’s foot thumps impatiently against the small of Fai’s back, and he huffs a laugh, kissing the slope of Kurogane’s throat as he surges forward. That’s a sign to get on with it if there ever was one, and Fai’s too weak to do anything but obey. The next thrust comes faster, more forceful, making them both groan-- and then after that they have no more breath to spare on words.

When Kurogane grabs a proper fistful of his hair, yanking just hard enough to spike sweet pain down Fai’s spine, his hips snap forward aggressively, and when Kurogane pulls him down by that same handful of hair --strong fingers slipping through the tangles, blunt nails scraping rough across his sparking skin, Fai gasping helplessly as heat blurs across his vision-- he can’t help but fall forward, landing heavy on the man beneath him. But it’s what his lover wants, Kurogane’s left arm slung heavy across his shoulder to pull him closer, and what Kurogane wants, Fai will give him; give and give until he has nothing left.

“Hang on,” grunts Kurogane suddenly, stilling Fai mid-thrust; he gasps in huffing breaths as Kurogane shifts a little and frees his hands to better brace himself against the rumpled sheets, leaning back on his elbows to swing both legs about Fai’s hips and squeeze him tight between thighs heavy with muscle. “Better,” he sighs, and falls back; he grabs at Fai’s shoulders as he goes and pulls him down, Fai’s knees all but buckling under him as they crash together. Fai’s skin, slick with sweat, glides heavy over the hardness pressing hot against the flat of his belly as he drives deeper into this new angle, and Kurogane makes a rumbling sound in the back of his throat, arching up to meet him. Big hands claw tightly about Fai’s shoulders, fingers digging in with bruising force as each thrust shoves him back against the mattress, and the bedsprings creak in a whining symphony beneath them.

Fai’s not going to last much longer --the tightness in the small of his back and the stars that flash across his eyes between each drop of sweat that falls from his fringe, pattering wet against his face, promises him that much; and he hasn’t the strength to hold back that heat that threatens to crash down and take him over besides-- but if he falls, he’s not going down alone. It’s easy to let his whole weight rest against the hard chest beneath him, scraping his teeth across the arch of Kurogane’s collarbones to pink dusky skin, gliding his tongue in a flat wet lick across the peak of a tight nipple as he grinds his hips in a slow, teasing circles that make his lover curse throatily and shudder below him. One hand wriggles into the tight, sweat-slippery space between them to close his fingers about hot, hard flesh; when Fai twists his wrist and squeezes, dragging the pad of his thumb in a rough line downwards, Kurogane comes with a choked-out shout, spilling over in his hand with a rush of wet warmth that slicks his fingers.

His lover shudders, back arching; there’s enough power in the movement to lift him off the bed completely, and Fai atop him too. “ _Kuro-sama_ ,” he gasps, wide-eyed and stunned, and that’s it, Fai is _gone_. It breaks over him in a shock of heat and heaving breath that comes in desperate gasps dragged through his teeth; with sweat in his eyes and his Kuro-sama’s hands holding him so tight he feels like his bones might crack, that grip a sweet bruising force that spills a shiver down his spine, and he grinds in as close as he can between those heavy thighs, lost completely as this perfect, piercing pleasure takes him over the edge and blurs his vision into darkness.

Fai comes back to himself in a sighing shudder, sweeping down from head to toe, and it’s Kurogane’s hand, stroking slow down his spine, that wakes him from the soft dark of the afterglow. “Mmnm?” he mumbles, cheek heavy and warm against the firm planes of his lover’s chest. He can hear Kurogane’s heartbeat, a steady drumming that is slowly easing from a frantic peak, and it’s a wonderful sound.

“Hey. Don’t go to sleep,” comes the murmur, and if anyone sounds sleepy it’s the man beneath him and certainly not Fai. His hand is still stroking, a warm and welcome weight that glides across Fai’s back. “We’re gonna have to have another shower; we’re a mess.” He pauses, breathing deep; Fai is still pressed so close he rises with that broad chest as it expands. “Well. Maybe a bath-- I don’t want to get this dressing wet.”

“Mm,” Fai agrees, blinking furiously to open eyes that feel so deliciously heavy. “And _whose_ idea was it, to get this messy in the first place?”

“Mine,” says Kurogane, completely without shame; he sounds pretty smug about it too. “Been wanting that since we first landed here and you let yourself go in that warehouse. Would have had you earlier, if we didn’t end up stuck dealing with the fallout.”

 _That_ wakes him up, startles him from his post-coital stupor. “Eh? But you were hurt! Kuro-kink can’t be serious.” But the chest beneath him rolls with a shrug, and when Fai peels his cheek away from warm, sweaty skin, raising himself up on his elbows, it’s to lift his head and meet an open, truthful gaze. “But what was I doing that made you want-- _want_ \--” Fai splutters to a halt, unsure and incredulous, but the gleam in those sharp eyes does not lie, and Kurogane has never given him cause to doubt in all the years Fai has known him.

“You’re strong,” says Kurogane simply. “And fast, and clever; you had something to protect --the kid, the manjuu, me-- and you gave it your all. When you’re like _that_ , mage... _well_. Don’t blame me.” Kurogane doesn’t colour easily, his gorgeous dark skin the kind that rarely shows a blush, but the tips of his ears are red, and even if he meets Fai’s gaze boldly, proudly, there’s still a slight hesitance in his voice. As though he expects chastisement for this admission, as though Fai might laugh; but it’s the furthest thing from his mind, right now, and he’ll be damned if he ever laughs at something that makes him feel so... _well_.

“There’s something I didn’t know about you, Kuro-sama. Who says you can’t surprise me, hm?” It’s easy to let the warmth bleed through his voice, and when Fai raises his hand to curve around that much-loved face, he can’t stop the way his startled smile widens into something crooked and honest-- and wouldn’t try to, besides. “Well then,” he says gently, and the last of Kurogane’s tension goes, melts away beneath the press of their bodies together, Fai’s fingers tracing soft across the bandages that crown dark hair. “We’re having another shower, and then off to bed for the both of us; it’s been a long day. But tomorrow, when we’re rested, we’re going to have a nice, long, _talk_.”

Kurogane turns his head just slightly, lets his mouth slide warm over Fai’s palm. “Alright,” Kurogane murmurs, and if Fai weren’t so wonderfully tired that brush of those lips might have been enough to set them off for a second round. “Tomorrow then,” says his Kuro-sama, smiling, and if that smile means that Fai just _has_ to curl his hand behind that strong neck and pull him in close for a kiss, Kurogane really _does_ have only himself to blame, and never mind what he has to say otherwise.

**Author's Note:**

> If you think Kurogane doesn't have a serious, _serious_ competency kink when it comes to Fai kicking arse and taking names, then you are sorely mistaken, my friend.


End file.
